In a relief to passengers, Indian Railways has announced that it will now allow travellers to transfer their confirmed tickets to someone else, according to reports.

Railways has also put down specific guidelines on how to transfer a confirmed ticket.

According to an Indian Railways statement, a passenger can transfer his/her railway ticket to other members of the family including father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, husband and wife by making a written request 24 hours before the scheduled departure of the train.

Students of recognised educational institutions will need the approval of the head of the institution to transfer the confirmed ticket. The head can make a written request 48 hours before the scheduled departure and the reservation can be transferred to any other student of the same institute.

If the passengers are members of a marriage party, any person deemed to be the head of the group can make a request 48 hours before the scheduled departure of the train and the reservation made in the name of any member of the marriage party be transferred to any other person.

Such requests will, however, be granted only once.

The Chief Reservation Supervisor of important stations are authorised by Railway Administration to permit the change of name of a passenger, Business Today reported.

It may be a "relief" in some cases, but I fear that it will be misused and become a tool for the reservation touts.

Touts ke sabko apne bhai-behen banne chale

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"Kisi ne sahi kaha zindagi kutti cheez hai. You live life without a care in the world not realizing that life is building a heavy load of trash that it dumps on you one fine day, breaking your back." - saneless

The thing is that it is too subjective in the case of "marriage parties". Must be applicable to other group bookings too (tourist groups, pilgrimages etc). Maybe that's why the long distance trains get fully booked within seconds of opening time (8am) 4 months in advance, specially for the vacation seasons.

__________________Nietzsche (1887) : God is deadGod (1900) : Nietzsche is dead -----------------------------------------
I will not be hurried and I will not be bullied

Foetus Removed From A 20-Day-Old Baby’s Stomach! What is Fetus in Fetu?

In a bizarre, one-of-a-kind medical case, doctors from a hospital in Ahmedabad performed a rare surgery to remove a foetus from the body of a 20-day-old baby boy. According to a report published in The Times of India, the child belonging to a couple from Sanand in Ahmedabad and was admitted , after the parents discovered a swelling in its stomach. It was later revealed to the shocked family that the infant was suffering from a rare condition called retroperitoneal mature teratoma or fetus in fetu.

Dr Bhavin Vasavada, the gastrointestinal hepatobiliary and liver transplant surgeon who conducted the surgery told TOI that it was a CT scan that revealed the presence of a mass, ostensibly a foetus, inside the baby. The mass removed from the abdomen of the infant was indeed a mature teratoma (fetus-in-fetu), which had an undeveloped hand and some parts of a spine. The operation was a success and the child is said to be recuperating well.

What’s Fetus in Fetu?

The term fetus in fetu literally means a ‘foetus inside a foetus.’ It’s a rare medical condition in which a foetus gets prematurely enveloped and enclosed inside the body of its twin. So far, they haven’t been many recorded cases of fetus and fetu. Here are some shocking facts about this developmental disorder.

It’s not pregnancy: Fetus-in-fetu is not a result of sexual activity and is not akin to being pregnant. It is a developmental anomaly caused when the child is still inside its mother’s womb. The embryo of the child encases and envelops that of its twin, restricting its growth.

It’s very rare: It’s a rare medical condition and fewer than 200 cases have been reported so far.

It usually occurs inside the abdomen: The usual site for fetus-in-fetu is the abdominal cavity area or the retropetitoneal space.

It can present some symptoms: Symptoms of fetus in fetu include abdominal swelling, jaundice, pressure on the kidneys, breathlessness and vomiting.

It can steal the embryo’s blood supply: It could be a parasitic twin, growing within its host twin, feeding off its blood supply.

It can have some developed organs: Commonly, fetus in fetu are found with some parts of its vertebrae or spine. But in some cases, skin structures, gastrointestinal tract and central nervous system can develop on the foetus. Rarely, gonads, adrenal glands, heart, pancreas, spleen and a basic respiratory system can be seen on the foetus.

It can sometimes have hair: A 45-year-old woman had a fright of her life when the cyst removed from her ovaries was shown to have a face and long hair like hers. It turned out that the mass growing inside her ovary was no cyst but an “unborn” twin.

NEW DELHI: Indians, it appears, are getting unhappier by the year, while their not-so-well-off neighbours in Pakistan are becoming more joyful, shows the latest United Nations ranking of the world's happiest countries.

India, which dropped four places in the 2017 World Happiness Report, fell a further 11 places in the 2018 report. It now ranks a low 133 on the list of 156 countries monitored by the United Nations' Sustainable Development Solutions Network for its annual 'joy' report.

By comparison, terror-ravaged Pakistan, which was already 'happier' than India in the 2017 rankings, is shown as being even happier in the 2018 rankings. It's on number 75, up five spots from last year.

Not just Pakistan, all of India's immediate neighbours are more joyful than Indians, despite many of them not being nearly as well-off economically or even socially. Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka are all ahead of India in the Happiness rankings. Even state-controled China is happier than India.

The World Happiness Report published yesterday put Finland at the top among 156 countries ranked by happiness levels, based on factors such as life expectancy, social support and corruption.

What explains Finland being happiest despite it getting little sun and despite its frigid temperatures?

``Well, our politics and our economics. I think the basics are quite good in Finland. So, yes, we have the perfect circumstances to have a happy life here in Finland '' said Sofia Holm, a 24-year-old resident of Helsinki, the Nordic country's capital, to the Associated Press.